


And hid from him my heart’s delight

by SerenadeStrong (ninja_orange)



Category: Society of Gentlemen - K. J. Charles
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Consensual Underage Sex, First Time, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 20:19:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17029335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninja_orange/pseuds/SerenadeStrong
Summary: When Richard is 14, his daemon settles.





	And hid from him my heart’s delight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [caravanslost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caravanslost/gifts).



> This is a daemon au inspired by His Dark Materials, but not necessarily hewing closely to HDM canon. For the fic all you need to know is: everyone has a daemon, a manifestation of the soul that takes the form of an animal. As a child your daemon can change forms at will, but at some point they "settle" and can no longer change. Daemons can't move too far from their human except in certain rare circumstances. 
> 
> Content notes/warnings:  
> the underage tag is for some sexual exploration/discovery at age 14
> 
> Thank you Urrone for the beta, and thanks to plalligator and blindmadness for encouragement, alpha reading, and brainstorming help! This fic would be nowhere without all you guys.
> 
> The title is from Blake, because of course it is.
> 
> caravanslost, I hope you enjoy the fic!

It happened when he was fourteen. 

He was lying on his stomach in nothing but his drawers, with the old coat he'd worn spread over the grass underneath him. It was one of those rare summer days without even a whispered threat of rain, and after a long walk in the sun Richard had jumped into the pond with Cyprian to cool down. He wasn't much of a swimmer, and Cyprian didn't like the indignity of being wet, but it had been too hot not to. Now, in the shade of a willow tree leaning over the bank with the water cooling him as it evaporated from his back, and Cyprian stretched out next to him as a fox, the heat was merely pleasant rather than unbearable. 

He was fourteen, and with the warm air, the privacy afforded by the empty park and the overhanging tree, the faint breeze stirring the fine hairs on his back like a lover running a finger down his spine, Richard felt himself start to stir. He indulged the feeling, grinding his hips against the ground beneath him, for no other reason than it felt good. Cyprian's tail brushed up against him, soft bristles against his skin. He barely noticed it, but then he felt Cyprian change and suddenly there was another boy with him, one with bright, fox-red hair and a sharp mouth. 

It should have been wrong. It _was_ wrong, Richard was sure it was. Daemon were never human, there was something blasphemous about it. But he couldn't think of that now. It was the easiest thing in the world to shift onto his side and open his arm for Cyprian to join him, pressing together chest to chest, and then they were kissing and something that felt that good couldn't possibly be bad for you. Or if it was, it was worth doing anyway. 

Cyprian moved again, pushing Richards knees apart with his own and lining their hips up so a silky-soft cock brushed against his. Richard felt it like someone had grabbed him from the inside, it was such an all-over feeling of shock and pleasure. He pushed back, rubbing them together, feeling friction like sparks dancing between them. 

"I don't think we should be doing this," he managed to say, even as he was spitting on his hand and reaching between them.  
"I don't care," said Cyprian. And then his hand was twining with Richard's around their cocks, and Richard couldn't think of anything until he'd spent between them, hot and slick over their hands and bodies. He was somewhat surprised to see Cyprian had spent as well - he certainly never shat, or ate, or did anything else that fleshy human bodies did - but then daemons never looked human either, and Cyprian was still looking at him with bright green eyes and fox-red hair, and ears that were entirely human, if possibly a little pointed on the ends.

"Do you think that counted as the sin of onanism?" Richard asked, half to himself. Now that they were done, it was weighing on his consciousness somewhat, but he reasoned it couldn't be fornication if the other person was really just part of yourself.

Cyprian shrugged, entirely unconcerned. Richard had heard a sermon once that said daemons were man's soul made flesh, and bore with them their conscience, but Cyprian never seemed as concerned as Richard was about propriety or morals. 

They went back into the pond to wash off, then back to the coat to dry. Eventually Richard got hot again, and hungry. He stood up to shrug his shirt and coat back on, then looked at Cyprian, still naked underneath the tree.

"You had better change back," he said. 

Cyprian frowned at him, and didn't disagree, but he didn't change either.

"I don't think I want to," Cyprian said. Then, with some trepidation, "I don't think I _can_ ".

In the end Richard lent him his coat and went to Dominic's house. The coat wasn't quite long enough to cover his modesty in the front unless Cyprian wore it around his shoulders like some kind of classical courtesan painted in half-fallen-off robes, but it did well enough to get them from the pond to the kitchen garden and into the scullery, where Richard sent someone for some spare clothes for him to wear upstairs. He spent the walk darting glances at Cyprian’s pale, almost translucent skin, and felt himself smiling. He knew whatever had just happened to them was out of the common way, but it must be good, he thought. Nothing that brought so much joy could be anything other than good.

~*~

"What are you going to tell your father?" Dominic after they had dressed and retreated to the library. His monitor lizard Kyvian was curled up on the hearth looking half asleep but Richard knew from experience that she wouldn't miss anything of their conversation.

"I don't know," Richard said. He looked at Cyprian, who was frowning again as he fingered the buttons on his waistcoat, and tried to imagine telling his father, "My daemon settled, but it's not a lion or a bear or whatever you were hoping to have from your second best son, he's a skinny redheaded boy who who looks like a fox when he smiles." At best, Richard thought, the Marquess would be indifferent. At worst, he had vague nightmares of being cast out for an abomination of a daemon. He thought of exorcisms and a painful separation from half his soul who shouldn't have ever been able to look like this.

"How are you going to take him to Eton like that?" Dom continued. "Will he need school fees?"

"I don't _know_ ," Richard repeated, starting to get distraught. He couldn't think straight about this right now.

"We won't tell anyone at Eton." Cyprian said this loudly, cutting through their confusion. "I'll say I'm his servant. The boarding house won't care as long as I don't need my own room."

"What about classes? Games?" Dominic asked.

Cyprian shrugged. "The masters won't notice much if I keep my head down. They'll just think I'm new, or I skipped all their lectures last term."

"The boys will notice," Dom said. But neither of them had any better ideas.

~*~

His brother gave him a sad look, like he'd been caught red-handed doing something not necessarily criminal, but definitely _wrong_. His father raged and swore, and nearly laid a hand on Cyprian, but in the end there was nothing to be done.

The worst part though wasn't his father. The worst part was they could no longer touch as they once had. Before, when either of them needed comfort they could wrap themselves in each other, Cyprian adopting a warm, furred form to drape over Richard like a blanket. Even in class, or church, or at the dinner table, where a boy would be scolded for letting his daemon get out of hand, Cyprian could be a mouse, or a fly, or even a panther for that matter, and sit in Richard's palm or lean discreetly against his legs, and they would know, intimately, that they were there for each other. 

But now they were both boys, and fourteen year olds did not sit in each other's laps at table, or lie together by the fire in the library. When Richard had reached for Cyprian while his father harangued him, he'd had to pull his hand back sharply to dodge a blow from the old man’s stick. What would it look like to society? His father demanded of him. And Richard didn’t have an answer.

When they went up to his rooms, there was a pallet made up on the floor.

"I suppose this means we aren't to share a bed anymore," Richard said.

Cyprian said nothing. 

They went to bed separately, and it was the coldest Richard could ever remember being, even though it was August and all he had for a coverlet was a linen sheet. 

He woke, much warmer, to find Cyprian had crawled into his arms in the night. They were pressed tight together, Cyprian's back to his front. Richard drifted back to sleep almost immediately, feeling yes, this was good, this was right. Cyprian was in his arms and Richard could protect him from the world like this. 

He woke again, hours later, to a housemaid's shriek. She must have come in to draw the curtains and seen him in bed with, apparently, another man. He hastened to explain while Cyprian made no move to get up but blinked at her from the bed as if he were a lizard. They got another lecture from their father before breakfast. The next night Cyprian stayed in the truckle until morning, and Richard hated every minute of it.

~*~

At the end of the summer holidays Richard and Dominic went back to Eton, with Cyprian sitting across from them in the carriage. They almost hadn’t gone at all; the Marquess had raged about keeping him out of company to avoid shame on the family name. Only Phillip’s patient assurance that no one would know who Cyprian was, and pointing out that pulling him out of school would raise more questions, had allowed him to go back for the next half. They had given Cyprian a false name, said he was a country cousin, and brought him along as a new student.

They dodged questions for a few days, but somehow word spread that Richard had come back to school without a daemon. One afternoon when Richard, Dominic, and Cyprian were walking back from the village with packets of hot buns, they were caught up by two other boys in their year. Phillip “Phaidima” Allensby, whose daemon had settled as a large pole cat very early the past year, was generally looked to by the other boys in matters such as these. The other, who Richard only knew as “Beaks”, had a rather fierce looking wildcat padding behind him. He didn’t know either of their daemons’ names. 

“Here, Vane,” Phaidima called. 

Richard and his group reluctantly slowed and let the other boys fall into step beside them. 

“Vane,” Phaidima said again. “You _have_ been odd since you got back. Do you have a beetle? A little mouse? You’ve seen mine, you should show us yours.” He laughed at his own joke and jostled Richard’s shoulder a little harder than was friendly. 

“It’s none of your business,” Dominic said stoutly, walking on. 

“Hasn’t your rat there got something to say,” Cyprian said, looking pointedly at the pole cat lying across Phaidima’s shoulders. She bared her teeth and hissed at him, then whispered in her boy’s ear. 

Phaidima laughed nervously. “Don’t joke like that,” he said, his eyes darting between Richard and Cyprian. “Surely not.” 

“What?” Beaks demanded. 

“ _That’s_ Cyprian,” Phaidima said, pointing. “That _boy_ is Vane’s Cyprian.”

“Don’t be silly,” Beaks said, but he looked at his cat who looked back at him with meaning in her eyes. 

“Believe what you like,” Cyprian said, and walked on with his jaw set and his eyes forward. 

Richard glared at Cyprian, who ignored him, and strode ahead to where Dominic was trying to outpace the other boys without running. 

“Is it really?” the boys called, hurrying after them. “You think I’m gullible, I don’t believe you,” said Beaks, and as he caught up to Cyprian, he grabbed him by both arms. 

Cyprian made a noise like a struck cat and Richard felt the wrongness shudder through him, as unpleasant and slippery as castor oil. Dominic yelled too, and he shoved Beaks back while Kyvian jumped down and took the cat’s hind leg in her jaws. Phadaima and the pole cat hovered anxiously around them all, but didn’t quite dare pick a side. Richard braced himself for more trouble, but they seemed content to dust themselves off and sneer as they turned around and walked back the way they’d come. 

Richard looked at Cyprian, who was glaring back defiantly. He knew why Cyprian had provoked the other boy. It hurt to hide so much. It hurt not to brag that he’d settled, the way the other boys did. But it could only be worse if people knew, and resented them for it. 

They walked back to their rooms in silence, Richard growing more and more angry as they went. When they finally got back, he asked Cyprian to leave him alone. 

“I can’t,” Cyprian said peevishly. 

“You can go out in the hall,” Richard snapped back. 

“Yes, that will certainly quiet any rumors,” Cyprian said. “Me waiting outside your room for who knows how long until you’re done with whatever pet you’re in.”

“Rumors that are your fault!” Richard yelled. 

“Richard, please,” Dominic said, glancing down the hallway, but Richard didn’t care anymore who heard him. 

“I’d rather have had a beetle,” Richard said. “I’d rather be without you all together!” and he slammed the door between them, and sank down exhausted onto his bed. 

He knew at once how hurt Cyprian was. He felt the same ache in his own breast, and he regretted his words already. That first moment when Cyprian’s lips had met his had made sense of the whole world, but could one moment of happiness be worth society’s condescension and censure? Richard thought of Cyprian’s body against his. The comfort that was more than just the nearness of his daemon, how every part of him was perfect from the shell of his ear to the glint in his eye. Maybe not worth one moment of happiness, but perhaps worth it if they could find time for more.

He opened the door, and pulled Cyprian into his arms at once, murmuring how sorry he was to have hurt him. Cyprian snuggled closer, and for a moment, everything was all right again.

~*~

Cyprian

They managed the next few years never more than an arms length from each other. Barely passable in public, they were too close for Richard's father to approve and were constantly being threatened with no allowance and being sent down from school should even a whiff of scandal reach his ears at Tarlton March. Richard fretted over the threats but in the end either wouldn't or couldn't push Cyprian away from him. It was easier after they went to Oxford. Cyprian had never been known as a daemon there and they found numerous other young men who were happy to land in each others laps of an evening. In the right crowd no one looked twice when Cyprian sat close next to Richard on a settle and leaned against his shoulder. But that wasn't the only society they mingled in, and others were far less forgiving. 

Even with these breaths of respite they were never as close as Cyprian wanted them to be. As they needed to be, he sometimes thought. They shared a room but still kept separate beds, and Richard insisted they sleep apart for the look of things. Every few days one or the other of them would be finally unable to stand the distance and they would wake up tangled in the same set of sheets, and Cyprian would finally feel all right in himself again, but it would never last. 

Other Daemons gave him an odd, I-know-what-you-are look from time to time, but nothing ever came of it. Richard, if asked outright, talked around the truth as much as possible. Cyprian could only wonder whose humans were keeping quiet out of deference to Richard's rank and whose were still in the dark.

Dominic was still the only one who officially knew their secret. Naturally, then, he and Richard stayed close, and got closer.

When Phillip was set to be married to Eustasia, Richard and Dominic shared a coach to Tarlton March. They took the front facing seat together, with Cyprian across from them and Kyvian across Dominic's lap. As they jostled along the road their shoulders bumped together. Every time they were thrown together they laughed and smiled at each other, their gazes lingering just too long. When Kyvian moved so her hind legs and tail were draped across Richard's lap, Dominic shivered and looked up at him. Cyprian glared, but neither seemed to notice. 

That night, Dominic lingered in their rooms under the pretenses of having a nightcap away from the press of other guests and the overbearing eye of the Marquess. Cyprian lounged on the plush carpet in front of the fire. He knew Dom and Richard were in arm-chairs behind him, drawn close together. If he looked out of the corner of his eye he could see Richard’s arm laying across the arm of Dom’s chair, so his fingers brushed lightly against Kyvian where she was curled in Dominic’s lap. He turned toward them, not really wanting to see but needing to know, and saw Richard lean over to press a tremulous kiss to Dominic’s mouth. Richard’s hand was still on Kyvian’s ruff, and when he kissed Dominic the lizard shuddered and her eyelids blinked and closed. 

When they pulled apart Richard looked disbelieving, and Dominic looked dazed. They looked lost in each other, completely, until they both turned at some unspoken queue and looked at Cyprian, who realized his mouth was open and promptly shut it. 

“Cyprian—,” Richard said, entreating. Dominic’s fingers twitched at his side, as if he’d had to stop himself from reaching out. 

Cyprian breathed. He imagined what would happen if he stood up and went to them. He imagined Dominic running a hand through his hair, the unnatural, electric feel of another man’s hands on him. It frightened him even as his whole body pulsed with desire. He looked again at Kyvian shivering in delight under Richard’s thick, warm fingers. It would be all four of them if he did this, tangled and loving together. He looked back to Dominic, his lips pink and a little wet from Richard’s kisses. And finally he looked at Richard. Richard, who was looking at Dominic. 

Cyprian’s desire turned to ice in an instant. As if he felt Cyprian’s eyes on him, Richard turned to look at his daemon, but Cyprian was already getting up to leave. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. He could barely choke the words out. His flesh was crawling the way it did at an unwelcome touch. He imagined Dominic’s hand on him now and shuddered. 

The corridor was thankfully empty when he stepped into it. He wondered for a moment if Richard would come after him. He could hear the low tones of his voice through the door and felt it thrumming in his chest like a resonance. Dominic said something as well, too quiet to make out even the tone of voice, and then there was nothing but the creak of the bedstead, as if two men had tumbled into it. 

Cyprian gritted his teeth and went downstairs. 

The servant’s hall was two floors below. No one else was about, though a scullery maid lifted her head from her truckle by banked kitchen fire. Cyprian gestured for her to go back to sleep, and she rolled over gratefully, her little dog daemon curled besides her with his head by hers. Cyprian didn’t bother lighting a candle, just sat in the dark, wondering what would come next for him. The distance was nearly at the end of what was comfortable for Cyprian, and it took some effort to stay seated. He welcomed the sharp ache of the bond stretching tight between them. It felt right, it _should_ hurt while Richard was upstairs in Dominic’s arms, and he took some small comfort in knowing Richard would feel it too. 

An hour or so later, there were heavy treads on the stairs. Cyprian knew it would be Richard before he saw the candle lighting his face as he came closer to the kitchens. He had felt it as soon as Richard had started downstairs.

“Please come to bed, Cyprian,” Richard begged him. He looked tired, and when he reached out Cyprian had to hold himself stiff to avoid throwing himself at Richard’s chest and sobbing at the comfort of it. As it was, he managed a fairly restrained sigh as he came close and Richard brought an arm around him. 

Richard murmured to him as they went back to their rooms - that he was sorry Cyprian had been taken unawares but surely he understood. What was between him and Dominic wasn’t the same as what they had, it couldn’t be, it never was. Cyprian said nothing but let Richard hold him in bed that night. The visceral ache behind his breastbone from spending so long so far away was still too raw for him to give up that one comfort.

In his hour alone though, Cyprian had come to a conclusion: somehow, he would have to leave. Richard would be better off without him.

~*~

The carriage ride home was much the same as the one there, except Dominic and Richard were less circumspect about letting their fingers tangle together. They both shot glances at Cyprian at first - to see if he was angry, perhaps, Cyprian didn’t know and didn’t care. He made no response, and let them act like lovebirds all they wanted as they rode back to town.

Cyprian meant to stay up that night, and enact his plan then. Despite himself, he drowsed off when Richard did, but he woke not long after, in the small hours of the night too late for men to still be up and not yet early enough for even the maids to be up. He took one of Richard’s valises and hastily packed it with clothes and a few trinkets he thought he could sell for funds. He didn’t know where he was going, but he planned to head for the docks, and perhaps from then to France, or America. Somewhere so far he couldn’t go back even if he wanted to.

At the front door his chest started aching. By the end of the block, he could barely put one foot in front of the other. Richard surely would be awake by now, and coming for him any second. He had to snap the bond between them now or neither of them would ever be free. He had to—. 

He tried to move forward again, stumbled and braced his hand against the sooty brickwork next to him. Then suddenly he was moving backwards, the pain shrieking inside him as strange hands pinned his arms to his sides and he was pulled into a dark alley between two mansion blocks. 

“You’re an odd one,” a rough male voice behind him said. “Look like a man and dressed like a Lord but my Perry says you’re a daemon. Where is she?”

“Where’s who?” Cyprian’s voice was nearly inaudible even to his own ears. 

The man behind him shook him roughly. “Your lady,” he snapped. “Or your man. If you’re a daemon they must be just around the corner.”

Cyprian’s breath was becoming shallow and labored now. Any second now, he thought, surely Richard would feel this, would come rescue him. He wanted beyond anything for the pain to end, for Richard to rescue him. But then his next thought: he’d truly meant to snap the bond, and if Richard came after him here and was set upon, and robbed, or even killed— Cyprian shuddered. He had to go, now. 

Cyprian slumped in the footpad’s hold, feigning a swoon - though it was dangerously close to the real thing. The footpad scoffed, and through barely-open eyes Cyprian watched a large rat daemon run over his shoulder and into his waistcoat pocket, looking for a watch or anything else of value. 

With a wrenching heave he threw himself forward, out of the man’s hold. The rat yelled and jumped from his coat pocket as Cyprian ran blindly out of the alley. It took all his strength but he moved as fast as he could, and between one step and the next he felt something give, and with a sob he realized that was it, he was free.

~*~

He must have fainted for real after that. He woke back in Richard’s townhouse, tucked among blankets and pillows in his bed in Richard’s room. When he woke, Richard cried out his name and rushed to his side. He explained they’d found him, robbed of his few valuables but unharmed, only a few blocks from the house. He could still feel the bond between them, but faint and flimsy, and he knew it would no longer constrain him the way it once had.

“Why did you leave?” Richard whispered. He reached out, as if to take Cyprian’s hand, and pulled back at the last moment. 

Cyprian could hardly remember himself. 

“This will be better,” he whispered, and sank back into exhaustion.

~*~

Richard

After sixteen years and more of always being an arms length away from the other half of your soul, you'd think you'd get used to it. Richard watched Cyprian brush a speck of lint off his coat and hang it in the wardrobe. After that day - it was always _that day_ in Richard’s mind, the only day that really mattered - Cyprian had changed. No longer bound to be within a few rooms of Richard at all times, he’d suddenly been gone for most of the day. At night, he acted as valet. Richard had been too shocked to push past the “yes, my lord” and “no, my lord” that were suddenly the bulk of Cyprian’s speech to him. And then, well, once you’ve let your daemon valet you for long enough it was damned awkward to stop all the politeness. It was as if each day another pane of glass had gone up between them, until Richard thought breaking through them all would be as painful as their first separation had been. 

Richard had more or less let Cyprian do as he pleased. One of his first acts had been to pension off most of the servants. The new ones hadn’t been told anything about the man who hired them other than he was a particularly trusted valet, in the employ of Lord Richard since before he'd had this house. Cyprian stopped shadowing him to all his social obligations, and within a few years the Ton seemed to have forgotten he’d ever been anything but the man polishing Richard’s boots to a superlative shine. 

It was awful, in the original, awe-inspiring sense of the word, to have Cyprian so close and so far all at once. Cyprian still knew him, that much was clear. His life was made easy, his wishes taken care of sometimes, it seemed, before Richard even knew what he wanted. Cyprian was always there, touching every part of his life, so that he couldn’t get dressed or see his friends or go to his club without knowing Cyprian had made it so. And yet, some days they barely exchanged more than a “good morning” and “good night”. 

Richard watched as Cyprian arranged his room before retiring and wondered again, as he always did, what would happen if he reached out for the other man. But last time he’d reached a hand out, Cyprian had left. Even this half-life of seeing him always and never having anything more was better than nothing.

~*~

Cyprian

Richard came home in a pensive mood. He’d been to visit his brother again, a frequent occurrence since he ran most of the day to day affairs of Cirencester’s extensive properties, but the visits didn’t usually leave him looking so thoughtful. He was pacing in his bedroom, apparently without much to do before he needed to dress for dinner.

Cyprian watched him closely, as he always did. That he still loved Richard was undeniable. Whether or not he could ever act on it was less certain. After he’d stressed their bond to the breaking point their connection had not been entirely severed, but it had left him free to live life apart. He could travel across London now and not even feel a twinge. He could have left completely, made an anonymous life of his own somewhere as a clerk. Instead he’d devoted himself to Richard’s. Because he did still love him, and he wanted Richard to know, and when he was entirely honest, because out of spite he wanted Richard to know what he was missing. 

“Cyprian,” Richard said into the silence. 

“Yes, my lord?”

“What would you do if I married?”

Cyprian froze. He knew Richard better than anyone ever could. He took pride in anticipating what Richard wanted before he ever asked. He hadn’t expected such a question. 

“Phillip asked. He didn’t insist, but he made it very clear he thought it would be a good thing. And I know there are many reasons I should, but,” he paused, and sighed. “It was that night with Dom which. . . changed things between us. I always thought you didn’t like me being with anyone and I’d never,” he struggled for the words. “It is the last thing in the world I wish to do to make you unhappy. But it was something Phillip said, I wondered since you did go to such pains to separate us, if you would not _prefer_ me to marry. If you had taken yourself away on purpose.”

Cyprian could not think what to say. “Do you want to marry?” He finally asked. But he could not imagine the answer was yes; he’d have known if Richard had a woman he was in love with. Or even one he had a friendly regard for, or one whom he could see allying himself with. He had none of those, Cyprian was certain. 

“No, not really,” Richard said. “But if _you_ wanted me to. I suppose a wife would have to know what you are to me, would you mind?”

“No, not if you really wanted to marry. But if you don’t — Richard, I never wanted to separate myself from you. If I did, it was only because I thought it would make both of us happier to have a little more freedom. But I am the way I am because I love you.” It was painful to speak his feeling out loud, but now that he’d started he had to finish. “I was hurt that night with Dom. I hated that you could look at anyone else the way you had once looked at me. And it was — is — so _hard_ to be what I am and never show it. I had to follow you everywhere and never look like I was more than a friend, or a servant. I think I would have left soon even if Dom hadn’t been there. At least now I can help. I can make your life what it should be, even if we aren’t together.”

“And if we were?” Richard asked. “If we were together.” he reached out his hand, tentatively, as if he were scared of Cyprian shying away. Cyprian hesitated for a moment, one heartbeat of fear that he wouldn’t be able to bridge the years of distance between him, but their fingers touched, and he felt a shock travel through his body. He slid his fingers between Richard’s, entangled them and closed his grip to anchor them together. 

“I don’t know,” Cyprian said, answering his question honestly. “It wouldn’t always be easy. People would have questions. But I want to try.” And then Richard was around him, pulling him into an embrace and pressing Cyprian against his broad chest. It felt better than anything had in decades, comforting and familiar even as it rekindled something inside him that hadn’t been allowed to burn since he settled so many years ago. 

Cyprian clutched at Richard’s coat, desperate now to get skin to skin as soon as possible. Richard was so much taller than he was, all he could reach was his cravat, but Richard obligingly bent down and their lips found each other, and Cyprian had to swallow a whimper at the feeling. 

He undressed Richard hastily, tossing coat and waistcoat, linen and stockings, over the back of a chair with little care for the creases he’d need to press later. Richard in turn fumbled at Cyprian’s buttons and laces, and as soon as they were naked together, tumbled them into his bed. Lying there bare against Richard’s skin felt like coming home. The memory of summer heat decades ago came strong and vivid to his mind, and he shifted between Richard’s legs, feeling his length against his hip. How could this only be the second time they had done this? It was the only thing in this world that made sense, the only thing that Cyprian knew was worth any sacrifice. 

He rolled onto his back, urging Richard between his legs as he did so. They kissed again, sweet and hungry, as Richard’s weight pressed him into the mattress.

“Cyprian,” Richard whispered the name against his skin. “Cyprian tell me you want this, tell me this is right.”

“How could it be anything else,” Cyprian returned. He felt he might cry from the happiness of having this again, but he still wanted more. “Fuck me,” he begged Richard. “Please, I want—,” 

Richard groaned and his hands clenched where they gripped Cyprian’s shoulders. “Oil?” he said. “Or . . . no, I would rather not risk any discomfort with less.”

“I’ll get it,” Cyprian said. He struggled to make himself leave Richard’s arms, then rushed to the dressing room to fetch some linseed oil kept there. “Here,” he said as he got back into bed. He removed the stopper and tipped some into Richard’s palm, placing the bottle on the night table. 

He lay back, and Richard stroked slippery fingers between his legs. He was too gentle to penetrate, and probably didn’t mean to tease, but it fired Cyprian’s blood anyway and he squirmed underneath Richard, silently begging for more. Richard obliged for a moment, pressing his fingers against Cyprian’s hole, but then he moved away again, stroking the oil over Cyprian’s cock and balls.

“You needn’t be so careful,” Cyprian said breathlessly. “I won’t break.”

Richard let out a soft laugh. “I’m half afraid this is a dream,” he admitted. “If I keep going I’ll wake up just before I reach my completion with sticky linen and a cold bed.”

“Never,” Cyprian said with feeling. He reached between them for Richard’s cock and stroked it firmly. “I swear this is real, and I want you inside me.” 

Richard fumbled for the oil again. He added more, and when Cyprian spread his legs beneath him, he pressed one finger in. Cyprian clenched around it, a new but not unwelcome sensation of pressure and intimacy as Richard pushed inside him. Cyprian felt Richard’s cock bump against his thigh and he arched against it. Richard groaned and kissed him, all teeth and tongue, and added a second finger. 

“Is this okay?” he asked. His voice was naturally deep; this close even an intimate whisper rumbled against Cyprian’s chest. 

“It’s good,” Cyprian said, an understatement he thought if there ever was one. He felt like he might fly to pieces at any moment, the pleasure of Richard between his legs and the intimate stroking inside him combining to a feeling wholly unlike anything he’d ever felt before. The feeling crept up his spine and tingled down to the tips of his fingers, and he thought he could feel an echo of Richard’s own joy thrumming through the bond that still hung between them. 

At Cyprian’s urging, Richard finally fitted the head of his cock against Cyprian’s hole. There was a breathless moment of pressure and then Cyprian felt himself open around him, giving way as Richard pushed inside.

Cyprian gasped and arched into it, pulling Richard in farther. He wrapped his arms around Richard’s shoulders and held on as Richard thrust into him, rocking up to meet him and letting the pleasure between them build and build.

“Good?” Richard asked again. He was breathing hard now, in between kisses to Cyprian’s lips, his ears, his neck. 

“Perfect,” Cyprian said, feeling Richard around and inside him, finally feeling all was right between them once more.

~*~

They lay together after, sweat cooling on their skin.

“This won’t be easy,” Richard said, mumbling the words into Cyprian’s hair. 

Cyprian kissed Richard’s arm, since that was easiest bit of his skin to reach. “I don’t care,” he said. 

He heard Richard’s soft laugh, and knew he was smiling. “That’s what you said the first time,” Richard said. “I said I thought we shouldn’t do this, and you said ‘I don’t care’ and we did it anyway. Always so sure of yourself, my Cyprian.”

Cyprian kissed him again. “I don’t. I don’t care what anyone thinks of us, or what we should or shouldn’t do. I just know that I love you, and I know we belong like this, together. Everything else we’ll figure out as it comes.”

And they did.

The end

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't fit it into this fic but Julius's daemon is a gray stallion named Invictus. Silas's is a hedgehog.


End file.
